Brexit means Brexit, says Theresa May.But can she explain it? She just cannot say.Will there be a soft landing or will it be hard?Are immigrants welcome, or should they be barred?

The City of London is big in financeBut cities in Europe will jump at the chanceTo undermine Britain’s preeminent roleFor managing money’s a lucrative goal.

The Empire is gone, it can’t give them a liftAnd now from the E.U. they’re coming adriftTheir past is impressive, there’s much to recall.But ten years from now, will they matter at all?

Is Brexit heading for a “hard landing” – a clean break from Europe – or a more limited “soft landing”).We won’t know the answer for months or even years. Still, the very notion makes it vulnerable to Salon’s headline: “Behold, Brexit: The Greatest Political Satire of All Time.” A prime target of the article is former London mayor, Boris Johnson, “who elected to lead the campaign for Britain to leave the EU only because he thought he’d lose, albeit close enough to a win that he thought he could challenge Cameron for the PM role” (denied him because he was betrayed by his closest Brexit ally.)
Now Johnson is Foreign Secretary, one of the several charged with negotiating Brexit. So Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell portrays Johnson, prime minister May, and the rest of the negotiating team in the trenches haplessly going over the top, grunting in fury, in “The Fog of Brexit.” Another Bell cartoon draws on toilet humor: Two Brexit proponents, in side –by- side toilets, under the heading: “Britons, the Choice Is Yours (Not)…Hard Brexit or Soft, Strong and Surprisingly Long Brexit.” And cartoonist Shovel, under the heading “Britain Takes Back Control”, has a supplicant on his knees, fearfully pleading a foreign company not to leave saying “Nissan we beg you please stay…we’ll do anything you want. ANYTHING!!”

Posted on Friday, October 28, 2016 (Archive on Thursday, July 25, 2019)